Beautiful and not like anything I've read before. ( )

I was impressed by leadbelly by Tyehimba Jess, the author of Olio. It won the National Poetry Series competition. Like Olio, it's based on historical research he did, this time about the influential black American folk and blues singer, and awesome 12 string guitar player, Leadbelly (1889-1949). Leadbelly (or Lead Belly), Huddie William Ledbetter, had fits of temper, and was in and out of prison. He had to deal with the racism of the time, and trying to make a living singing n-word music.

Here are a couple of poems from the book that I liked.

1912: blind lemon jefferson explaining to leadbelly

. . . an' everything gotta be 'live on you son, read the crowd like a fortune
teller's tealeaf, from the plunk of a nickel to the bang of a quarter to the smell of thieves schemin' on a blind man's cash.

see this scar? i was between guitars in san antonio and broke enough to
wrestle men for carnival money. the one that did this had come back
three times for a ass whuppin' only a fool could want again, but when he
pull that shiv outta his boot, didn't nobody say nothin' - had they bets
on how hard i was gonna bleed. that's what the world is, son. desperate
enough to pin a blind man's back to the ground for all the money he
can't never even see. hungry enough to chop him down for takin' what
he's earned. that's what the world is. they lost money that day. an i
squeezed my stella out the pawnbroker's grip one last time.

that's what that box o' strings is, son. your boxcar ticket outta nowhere.
maybe even steak dinner, silk ties, and all the leg you can stroke. but you
gotta wrestle for it, son. you got to . . .

(*"stella" = his guitar)

***

martha: life's work

after strummin' til the sky bleeds orange, red-

eyed and raw-throated lead stumbles on home

and warms up the cold space on our mattress.

we touch slow for a small while, before

i rise to the mountain of laundry and lye

that every cleaning woman got to climb

without a stop,without gettin' no higher

than a washtub bottom or maybe the tile

i bend my knees into every day

in park avenue apartment buildings.

this is how we keep a living, we pay

on lay-away with spent muscle, stealing

back our flesh between the the twilight and sunrise

so we can own one thing what's got no price.

(* Martha was leadbelly's wife) ( )